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Random thoughts with sporadically profound meaning

Monthly Archives: June 2016

It’s been seven hours and fifteen days……okay, that may be a slight exaggeration (and a very cheesy song reference) but it feels pretty close to the truth that I have just faced. I looked at my blog posts for the last 27 days and I have posted 6, a measly 6, blog posts during this 27 day period. I have never been this bereft of creativity since I began my blogging journey.

And once those two words settled into my brain, I felt the familiar pull I feel when I write. Calling it a blogging journey doesn’t really do it justice. It doesn’t truly encompass the creative path that I have carved for myself since I became a member of the WordPress writing community. In this world, I have discovered many who share my passion and I have uncovered a deep part of myself that was grossly underutilized.

We all find things that give us a sense of freedom, moments that we can savor the state of true abandon from reality. Writing gives me that indulgence. It permits me to leave the rest of the world behind and go where the words take me. Nothing does compare to the pleasure I get when I tune out my inner critic and just let the words say what they want to say. Writing is the one thing in my life that I not only give complete freedom to but also allow it honesty without the constraints of censorship.

And although I know considerable chunks of time have seeped into the cracks and pushed the chasms of my imaginative spurts further apart, I continually stand on the precipice of inspiration, ready to seize any opportunity that the writing Gods see fit to send my way.

I do not live, nor have I ever lived, in the United States so I am decidedly unqualified to comment on their gun laws. I am, however, a member of the human race so that gives me as much right as anyone to voice an opinion on the senseless loss of lives in mass shootings.

I have never attempted to purchase a gun. And while I understand the unequivocable right afforded to U.S. citizens in the Second Amendment to the Constitution to ‘keep and bear arms’, this amendment seems glaringly outdated and egregiously misused.

Perhaps using a quote from Star Trek may seem trite but the needs of the many human beings on this planet, innocent people being cut down by automatic weapons designed for mass casualties, must, in some realm of reality, outweigh the needs of the few making these weapons legal to purchase and own.

The world is crying out. Its citizens are angry. The right to bear arms is understandable when we keep in mind its original intent was self-defense. The right to easily obtain a weapon meant to be a destructive killing machine seems to stretch the boundaries of that amendment to infinitesimal proportions.

How many more lives have to be unnaturally extinguished before someone says, “enough is enough”? This is a new world, an angry world. And the more we fuel that world with the means to spread hatred quickly and efficiently in a hail of bullets, the faster the human race will destroy itself and everything else in its path because they were allowed to buy legal armaments to make it happen.

We have already seen it too many times on our television and computer screens. Hate is a powerful force. And knowing that hate can simply walk in, go through the necessary channels and readily purchase an automatic weapon to spread its message scares the shit out of me.

It is with deep regret and great sadness that I announce the passing of the hamster who used to power the wheel of thoughts in my head. Jack died peacefully on his wheel on Sunday, June 12th at 3:15 pm in his 36th year.

Jack loved all things related to language and words. He excelled at creating just the right nuance in a sentence so it sounded interesting without being too wordy. He spent many hours pouring over his thesaurus to make a phrase engaging, yet comprehensible.

Jack began gnawing on his writing chops at a young age. He dabbled in poetry and short stories and had recently begun his foray into writing a novel. His passion for words led him to blogging and he relished the forum that allowed him complete freedom for his creative compulsion. He was a fanatic about grammatical correctness, loved to build a story from beginning to end and thrilled in plotting twists and turns that a reader may not have anticipated.

Jack leaves behind an empty wheel, a collection of Dean Koontz novels and a battered Underwood typewriter on which he had hoped to use to type his way into becoming a prolific Canadian author.

Expressions of sympathy can be sent to the comments section of this blog. R.I.P. Jack – we had a good thing going for a while.

I have recently spent many hours contemplating the amount of time I have endured over the course of my life encapsulated within the concrete vault of hospital walls, entombed in the casing of dry-walled office partitions and shrouded by the protection of the walls of my home. And although I would never described the feeling as being trapped, there is always a moment or two of feeling somewhat ensnared by the constraints of my life. The only thing that gave me true escape from those walls was writing.

There are no confines and no limitations when it comes to imagination. There are no barriers that trap thoughts in one place. Writing gives the freedom to be outside of my reality and float above my world, if only for a while.

Writing allows me to purvey thoughts and feelings that beg to be unleashed and creates a world of whimsical words. Some of those words are uplifting and some are deeply scarred with truth. Regardless of how the words spill onto the page, the combination of those letters help to break down the barricades of real life and create a portal into inspiration and thought. The hard outer shell of my existence crumbles and that gravel paves the road for my creative journey.

No one avenue will ever be the same. Each artery of language will have its own unique characteristics and each of us is drawn through a different vein of creativity. Writing, for me, is freedom and once the words come, all of the walls in my reality seem to fade away.

The caution beacon flashes. It warns me that the lane ahead may close, yet I feel compelled to keep driving in the direction I’m headed. The pavement is smooth and somewhat welcoming but I shift gears to slow my trajectory. The road winds in a multitude of twists and turns and, even with the subtle warnings, I can’t turn back. The excitement of what potentially lies ahead is enticing.

The spirits of ‘what could be’ sit on my shoulders and continue to whisper sweet somethings in my ear, urging me to go forward and see what lies beyond. If only the road I am travelling were not so treacherous. If only those hair-pin turns would straighten for just a moment so I could gauge what lays ahead but the exhilaration of the unknown is like a drug. Perhaps it warps my sense of reality and, just perhaps, it wants me to be excited by the unknown. It wants me to feel exhilarated by the element of danger.

I feel the pull to press down on the accelerator. My engine revs and I shift gears to make the ride smoother. My carriage rockets forward, almost on auto-pilot, seeking the true ride that it feels is its destiny. I follow that road, taking the blind corners and skilfully maneuvering the obstacles that inevitably fall into my path.

This road may be fraught with uncertainty but I am obliged to see where this artery of excitement will take me. The beat of its life echoes with mine and I am a casualty to the incessant drumming in my veins. The caution signs no longer have meaning and I fall victim to the thrill of the ride.

I keep driving and as my trek continues the sun begins its journey to meet with the horizon. The cascade of hues is breathtaking. The warm glow of the dying fire in the sky reaches my skin and I am awash in the embers of the end of the day. The stars begin to mottle the night sky and the promise of another day lies in wait. The vehicle I find myself in continues on its journey to see where this road will lead, hoping the beauty of the scenery is a portal of what is to come.

I will enjoy the journey I am following on the advice of my inner compass. If the adventure ends, at least I can say I took the road that beckoned and truly enjoyed the scenery along the way.